we're finally notdotq anymore

It came of me watching Strawberry Panic’s second opening one too many times. It came of me liking Kannazuki no Miko a bit too much. It came of my conversation with MrPippers and Joker. It came of the comments on that post on the Anime Stock Exchange. Ultimately, though, it came of me being way too tired and thinking way too much about topics that don’t deserve much attention (read: anime.)

There is no romance anime.

At least not according to the “sentimental, idealized love” entry in the dictionary I just consulted. There might be romance of the “exciting love affair” type. No, there is. But that’s not the point. I think most of us understand what I mean when I say the word romantic, so you should all understand what I mean when I say that there is no romantic anime.

Love, romance, meaningful feelings, in anime? We shall see.

First off let’s examine some of the comments on the aforementioned Anime Stock Exchange post, shall we?

“It’s not a rocket science. You’re probably turned on by Yuri, other straight males don’t. Some straight females are turned on by Yaoi, others don’t. Some gay man like myself like yaoi, others don’t. At the end of the day it’s just a fantasy.”

I think that the last sentence is especially worth scrutinizing. Yuri and yaoi are both, as established here, fantasies, nothing more and nothing less. In other words, they exist to serve the imaginations and needs of consumers. They are fanservice. As stated before several a time by me, “anime is to fanservice as chips are to salsa. It’s a delivery mechanism.” As confirmed by MrPippers, and, of course, as realized by countless others, that’s what anime IS, in essence (using a mathematical thingamajig called substitution)- fanservice.

No, it’s not all ecchi. I’m not saying that. I’m using a broader sense of the word. The ANN definition, except taking that definition literally. Something inserted to please the fans. If a series is built to compliment an existing game or manga or movie or book or figurine or what have you, its existence is service for the fans of that pre-existing media. If it’s new and stands alone, it will, without fail, attempt to appeal to potential fans by servicing them. Anime is fanservice. It’s indisputable.

But with this established, isn’t it pointless to argue that yaoi and yuri are fanservice? In anime, at least, they would automatically be fanservice by nature of being a part of the anime. No, I’m not trying to say “oh hey, yaoi is fanservice. hurrrrr~!”, I’m actually thinking a bit deeper than this. I’m thinking about heterosexual relationships in anime right now, and what they mean.

Strawberry Panic’s opening, rife with its colorful portraits of love and passion, clashes horribly with the show’s shallow premise and crappy execution. The opening practically laughs at itself, saying “look how amazingly deceitful we can get!! have fun with your maria-sama ga miteru rip off when you’re done appreciating our lyrics~!” But, as established previously, the show takes itself seriously. It sucks because it’s shit, not because the creators attempted and failed parody, as is the case with Bleach. And, taking this into account, we see that the opening of Strawberry Panic’s intent is to get the viewer into the show.

“Care about our characters,” the opening proclaims in a whiny, 8-year old voice. “Feel the love they feel. Shed the tears they shed. Understand that this isn’t meant to be the funniest show ever. It’s got its humor, yes, but it’s supposed to be drama. Come on, appreciate the drama. Bad yuri shows have feelings too, you know.”

The fact that this disgustingly “make-you-care” opening accompanies this disgustingly “go-ahead-laugh” show MUST say something about that whole yuri fantasy thing in anime. That drama, that emotion, that feelings and seriousness- that these are all false.

Moving right along, we take another show that’s over-dramaticized… say, Kannazuki no Miko! At the end of the day, it’s just a fantasy, right? We just watch it to see the girls kissing eachother and the mechas blowing eachother up, right? No real feelings went into the show. It’s not like there’s anything there. There can’t be. They say hindsight is 100/20 or someshit, and, as Strawberry Panic is airing after Kannazuki no Miko, arent’ the lessons we learn from it an important factor in considering Kannazuki no Miko’s quality? The answer, my readers, is a resounding “yes.”

But for one moment, consider Kannazuki no Miko as it is, with no Strawberry Panic on the radar. It’s full of emotion- the voice acting, the animation and “camera work”, the art, the soundtrack, the execution. It has a good storyline, and, while mecha-ridden, is home to several powerful characters with their own unique emotions (aside from Souma and Chikane, who both just want to sex up Himeko). It’s a beauty of an anime and stands as the shoujo-ai.com proclaimed FLAGSHIP OF YURI, portraying the most realistic and meaningful emotions in any lesbian anime ever. Such facts, such praise, surely they only point towards one conclusion- Kannazuki no Miko has meaningful love in it.

Yet along comes Strawberry Panic and trivializes all these things. And we look at Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito. We look at Kasimasi ~Girl Meets Girl~. We look at Maria-sama ga Miteru.

Are there really any feelings there? Is there anything beyond the fun fun quazi-memes of “yuri flute rape” and various jokes about Fukuzawa Yumi’s brother’s school? There can’t be.

But- wait! These shows have more than just GIRLS in them! In fact, one of the three main characters of Kannazuki no Miko was a YOUNG MAN. And he was STRAIGHT, as evidenced by his desire to bone Himeko. There was quite a lot of storyline regarding his love for Himeko. His feelings were just as potent and meaningful as Chikane’s. That is to say, in a Strawberry Panic view of the world, meaningless.

Yes, boys and girls, there’s a heterosexual relationship in anime that has no meaning.

Wait!

Let’s examine this further. Wait. No, we don’t have to. Any time that we are confronted with a heterosexual relationship, we can just look at the anime, see the things we recognize as specific fanservice, and laugh off the show. Saishuu Heiki Kanojo. What the hell was up with the death fetishism? LOLFANSERVICE. Wolf’s Rain. Hahaha emo. LOLFANSERVICE. (Insert eroge conversion here). Sex. LOLFANSERVICE. Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu. Tsunderekko, mahoutsukai uchujin, mikuru (insert witty comment about jason here), and animation whoring. LOLFANSERVICE.

Can anyone tell me with a straight face that, when Kyon told Haruhi that “omg ponytails turn me on let’s sexing”, they felt a wave of emotion? Apparently this scene brought tears to the eyes of one of the people at Tsunami Channel. Apparently, among some, this is seen as the epitome of love in anime. Get over yourselves already, fanboys. It’s fanservice. It’s a crappily written scene in an excessively over-done anime that takes itself seriously whilst giving whatever it can to the fans.

Love doesn’t exist in anime.

You’re looking for something to relate to? Something to find feeling or emotion in? A touching love story? Read a book. Find the journal or letters of some real human, and read them. Find out what a real person was thinking and feeling. Anime? ANIME?! Feelings? Anime? Feelings? Love? Romance?

Get out.

It’s 2:16 AM my time as I type these very words. I just insulted several of my favorite shows mercilessly. Also, I’ve done more than enough to earn the spite of Yuricon or shoujo-ai.com or any number of SOS-dan fans. What I’ve written here isn’t just a spur-of-the-moment thing. Some of you, a while back, were wondering what I meant when I said I hated anime. Some of you consider me unintelligent for watching all the shitty anime I do. Most of you probably misjudged my relationship with Japanese animation.

I’m not trying to tell people not to like what they like. At the end of the day, as stated in the quote near the beginning of this post, it’s just a fantasy. People get off on a variety of things, people like a variety of things, people might as well entertain themselves in a variety of ways. Making oneself emo with Evangelion isn’t something I look down on. I’m not trying to say “hey you suck for liking to do what you do.” Hell, I do a lot of shit that infringes upon any set of rational guidelines that might be set up based on this post. But remember this, before engaging in any attempted debates regarding the nature of fanservice in anime or the “true yaoi”- yaoi is the same as heterosexuality in anime, they’re both 100% fanservice.

For five months now, I’ve been blogging anime. I’ve ranted, raved, and made an absolute fool of myself. I did a lot of things- went to Fanime and wore that sign, signed up for Blogsuki and got rejected, made some buddies among the anime blogging community, was one of the first to join animenano, created the #animenano channel and operated it, brought Jason-hate to the channel and cajoled Dream Chaser into making the first anti-Jason graph post, became known on Hinano’s stats for liking the word ‘yuri’, skyped with MrPippers and KonoSono gang (and YY, but fuck him), and, of course, got myself made fun of a lot by wonderful people such as jpmeyer, Seth, and Hung himself.

From time to time, amongst all this, I might have mentioned “my site” in casual conversation a few times. I think most people took this to mean notdotq, as it is the site of mine that they know. But that’s all wrong. notdotq isn’t anything important to me. It’s not “my site”, it’s “my anime blog”, and it’s a tiny fraction of what I’m interested in maintaining. Over time, I realized I was getting more response from anime blogging, that this community is engaged and ever-enthusiastic, that there’s never a shortage of things to be said or a shortage of ways in which to respond to those. I realized that one post on notdotq could ellicit more reaction than months of work on “my site”, and because I’m a bit of an attention whore I let notdotq slide to the forefront of my activities.

Somewhere along the way, I went from five shows in a season to twenty six, and I’m currently watching thirty five or something.

In short, since starting notdotq, anime has consumed me.

Now, that’s not a bad thing. If I’ve talked to any of you about this before, you’ll know I have a reason to want to be consumed by anime. It’s not “something I must do!” or “my dream!!” , but it helps me get by. Immersion. I get to avoid thinking about unpleasant things when I’m dumbing myself down with anime. Unpleasant things like the fact that I’m dumbing myself down with anime.

Any of you who know more about me than “oh, lolikit? he has an oniitama who might be /be friends with jason and another brother who’s an IM at chess, and he’s not really a lolicon, and he’s a bratty sixteen year old yuri fetishist” will know that for the longest time, when signing up on internet forums, I’d put in the interests field: writing, drawing

When I started “my site”, that expanded to include internet. And soon, it became a lie not to start the list with anime. Truth is, if I’m ever talking to anyone, and they’re like, “so what do you like doing in your free time?” I can’t say writing because I rarely write anymore. I can’t say drawing because I rarely draw anymore. Oh sure, they’re things I love to do and want to do and enjoy doing- I just rarely do them anymore.

I’m going to see about regaining what truly made my life what it was before I gave into escapism. I’m going to try to change that nasty fact that entertaining people with crappy humor on an internet blog is the only thing I’m remotely good at.

I’m definitely going to keep watching Strawberry Panic, so that I can keep blogging it, because it would suck if notdotq ended right here without a fully blogged series. I’m going to keep watching a handful of other shows as well, but I think I’ll kill a good deal of what I’m watching. I’m also probably ONLY going to blog Strawberry Panic- unless something important pops up and I feel the need to address it here.

Eh, I don’t mean to be so dramatic about it all. Basically, I have things that mean more to me than anime, and I want to cut back on the time going into the anime to be able to spend time doing those things I care more about. I’m focusing on something more important, and notdotq will most likely be less vibrant than it once was.

I’m not going to say anything rash like “I’m going to quit watching anime” because there’s no way I can.

Oh, and jpmeyer, if you comment on this saying “fuck anime. I want to live.” … well, I might just go ballistic.

This shouldn’t affect anyone except for those who link to this site. I think I changed my info on animenano and this should show up there. But yeah, notdotq is now at http://not.dotq.org .

Nothing should be broken, because I think I managed to move the site more or less perfectly, but do let me know if something should fail. Thanks!

Naw, there aren’t any downs. You’re all awesome people.

2haremless :: I hooked up a link exchange with 2haremless during tehpooch’s first days, and frankly I haven’t really been reading this blog. I browse the site every now and then, and it seems like half the content is Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu-fanboyings. I have nothing against people liking what they like, but I feel no obligation to read posts like this. Due to not reading the site thoroughly, I’m not that familiar with the writers. Eh well.

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I have figured out what’s wrong with Strawberry Panic. Every character in it is a fucking dumbass, except for Chikaru, who’s too busy with her cosplay fetish to be stupid. When Kenjou and Momomi throw Nagisa into the stage set and it breaks, why the hell does Nagisa apologize? Why the hell don’t the other people on stage start beating the hell out of those idiot Spica bitches?

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VS.

Discuss.

Man, Spica really sucks. They all need cocks in their mouths, except for Yaya and Hikari, who need to be 69ing eachother 24/7. I really dislike how the fucked up politics of lesbian schools plays into such things as choosing characters for a play. I do, however, like how that leads to lolis kissing. Rokujou just became all kinds of awesome for making Chikaru the lead in the play, because Chikaru is clearly the best character in the show when Yaya isn’t stealing mechas and fluteraping people.

Somehow I’m getting the feeling that Strawberry Panic is a popularity contest.